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Monday, July 30, 2012

I have been totally remiss in blogging post BEA, which seems like it was just last week but it is nearly 2 months since BEA 2012 ended. It has been unbelievably busy post BEA with budgets, planning for 2013 and LOTS of meetings. One of the things that has been an important agenda item is planned changes for the BEA Bloggers Conference (BBC) in 2013.

We know the BBC in 2012 was not perfect and we had a stumble or two along the way, but feedback has been extremely positive and encouraging. Based on the feedback we got from '12, we will make a number of changes for '13 to make the BBC the best event possible.

The BBC will form an advisory committee made up exclusively of book bloggers to oversee the conference content. We have gotten a number of great suggestions with our intent of wanting a variety of blogging genres represented from YA, Fiction, Adult, Children's, etc.... The objective is so the BBC's content is relevant and valuable for book bloggers.

Any key notes must be blogger-centric - not there was anything wrong with the key notes from this past year, but they could have easily been on a BEA program vs. speaking to bloggers.

Make the registration process simple. There are so many needs and moving parts, this is actually incredibly hard, but we recognize the registration process and the changes last year we implemented along the way made for a horrible experience and there is no excuse for that - we have to make this simple and easy.

Look for an update in early Fall when we announce the date Reg will be going live and the roster of bloggers that will make up the BBC Advisory Committee. We thank EVERYONE that participated in the 2012 BBC and especially those that took the time to share their insights. We value you opinion and we will make changes to make this a better event for you.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Below is from the press release and announcement that BEA made minutes ago to all of our exhibitors and attendees. I am thrilled this option came to pass and is something that BEA has been working on for a long time. Simply put, there are 3 big wins here - the biggest and the driving reason is significantly reducing the hotel rates for BEA was critical, the second win is this makes BEA available to a group of booksellers, educators and librarians that need a weekend day to be able to attend and lastly this will accelerate BEA's plans to engage consumers by having Saturday as the day BEA is open to consumers.

Show Floor Opens Thursday, May 30th; Conference Day

Will Be Wednesday, May 29th

Hotel Rates Expected to
Drop!

Norwalk, CT, July 9, 2012: Officials at
BookExpo America (BEA) have announced that BEA in 2013 will take place one week
earlier than previously announced. Organizers have been seeking the earlier
date from the Javits Center for a while as it is expected to drive down hotel
prices by 10% - 20% depending on the property. The surprise availability of the
new dates was just confirmed by Javits officials this week. The new dates for
exhibits at BEA in 2013 will be Thursday, May 30th - Saturday, June
1st. Conference Day will take place on Wednesday, May
29th and the show floor will be open Thursday, May 30th -
Saturday, June 1st. The Book Blogger Conference will take place on
Wednesday, May 29th as will the Remainders & Gift Pavilions as
has been done for the last 5 years.

Officials note that there will be no
additional costs for exhibitors with the new dates as the lease option provides
the same amount of time for set up and tear down on straight time that they
would have had under the previous date pattern. There will be no need to
contract labor for overtime. "I am incredibly happy that we have been able to
come to this arrangement with Javits," notes Steve Rosato, Show Manager for
BookExpo America. "This shift addresses the #1 issue that was out of BEA's
control which was the hotel prices in New York City. This works to everyone's
advantage ... most notably, for our attendees, especially the ABA for whom hotel
costs are a top priority. We are pleased to deliver this better alternative
which will unequivocally deliver significant savings to all our participants in
2013. Simply put, BEA can provide more lodging at a lower rate and we are able
to secure larger blocks in the most popular hotels with these dates."